Ignorance and the sublime, mingled in a single posting

I was playing with a now-modified version of the flocking analog synthesis patch mentioned here earlier today, and decided that I wanted to know what the initial parameters that controlled the Java-in-Max “Flies” object was. So I asked Topher, one of our resident Java sages if he knew what the object’s init values were.

He reminded me what anyone who’d read our documentation (let alone edited the stuff) should know: that you can send any Max mxj object the viewsource message (Even if you don’t have the source, the viewsource message will decompile it for you if you have the Java class file!) to check on this kind of thing.

So I was staring at the source code with my cheeks ablaze with shame, when suddenly I remembered the loveliest piece of source code I have ever laid my eyes upon (no kidding). With luck, you’ll be so amazed by it as to be distracted from this tale of my own stupidity….W. Bradford Paley’s piece Code Profiles turns the navigation of a hunk of Java into visual poetry. I don’t want to ruin the surprise: just look.His website is a nourishing place to spend some time in clicking, reading, and contemplation. Among other treasures, it contains an elegant and beautiful proposal for a World Trade Center monument, and a very interesting visualization of ad-hoc social networks undertaken for Ars Electronica using the 21st century equivalent of the Victorian stickpin.